A DEADLY GANGLAND MASQUERADE

Ronald Koziol and John O`BrienCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Reputed mob figure John Fecarotta might have been lured to his death by being led to believe that he was part of a three-man hit team on a gangland assassination mission when, in fact, he turned out to be the victim, police sources said Monday.

Fecarotta, 58, a former union business agent and a suspect in at least two murders, was gunned down while being chased by two men through an alley on the Northwest Side just after 8 p.m. Sunday.

He appeared to have been shot four times along the way before one of his assailants grabbed him by the neck and put a final bullet into the back of his head as he stood in the doorway of Brown`s Banquets Inc., a bingo hall at 6050 W. Belmont Ave.

Police found a beeper on Fecarotta`s belt and planned to interview the three persons whose telephone numbers were stored in the beeper. A police official said one of the numbers was that of a relative and the other two appeared to be those of friends or business acquaintances.

Police speculated that Fecarotta, of 268 Gage Rd., Riverside, might have thought he was part of a hit team partly because he was wearing gloves when he was shot down and was carrying two weapons.

Fecarotta was carrying an empty .38-caliber revolver, which had not been fired recently, and his own loaded weapon was stuffed into his waistband.

Police said Fecarotta had fled from a 1986 Buick Century parked behind a building across the street from the bingo hall, and they found blood on the driver`s seat of the car, which had been stolen.

The front doors of the car were open, the lights were on and the motor was running when police officers discovered the car shortly after arriving on the scene.

One possible scenario is that Fecarotta was injured in a scuffle in the car, possibly after discovering that the weapon given to him by his would-be accomplice was not loaded.

Witnesses told police that they saw two men chasing Fecarotta, who was shot in the side, the stomach, the back and the arm before being felled by the bullet to the head.

Five rounds of .38-caliber ammunition, apparently removed from the revolver before it was given to Fecarotta, were found in the front seat of the car.

Also found in the car was a bundle of railroad flares, taped together, with a fuse protruding to resemble a dynamite bomb. This could have been part of the ruse to make the victim believe he was part of an execution team, police said.

Police records show that Fecarotta, as long ago as 1965, was identified as a collector for crime syndicate loan sharks, a job he is believed to have had at the time of his death.

Fecarotta also was former business agent and organizer for Local 8 of the Industrial Workers Union. A report by the President`s Commission on Organized Crime concluded after hearings in 1985 that Fecarotta apparently was nothing more than a ''ghost'' employee of the union who ''received an unearned salary and apparently used his union position as a legitimate cover.''

Fecarotta had lost his union job in 1982 during a federal grand jury investigation of ghost payrollers in a number of Chicago unions.

Witnesses to the Sunday night shooting told police that the two men chasing Fecarotta were whisked away in a car, driven by a third man, that fled south on Austin Avenue shortly after the shooting.

The man who reportedly grabbed Fecarotta from behind and shot him in the head was described as being in his early or mid-30s, about 5 feet 7 inches tall, wearing a black suit with a white shirt and white necktie.

The second gunman was described as being in his late 30s, 5 feet 5 inches tall, wearing dark clothing and a white shirt.

At the time he was dumped as a union organizer, Fecarotta was reported at odds with John Serpico, international vice president of the Laborers International Union of North America and president of Local 8.

Both men were called in April, 1985, to appear as witnesses before the President`s commission, which listed Fecarotta as the No. 3 man behind Angelo LaPietra, 1st Ward and Near South Side rackets boss, now serving a 16-year prison sentence for his role in a Las Vegas casino-skimming operation.

After five court hearings in which Fecarotta was threatened with jail if he did not testify, the commission changed its mind on using Fecarotta as a witness at its Chicago hearings into labor racketeering.